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I'm in for most of them. Don't care much for Ant3, Cap 2, or Shang Chi, but the rest I'm up for.
MCU - Phase Four
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Agreed.
I'm eager to see what some entity other than Disney does for the action/adventure/sci-fi genre over the next 10 years.
We're long overdue for some talented directors to reinvent those genres again. Or at least make them feel fresh again.
That right there is my problem with CBMs. None of them are "[insert genre] with a Cape character". They're all just... the same, generic sort of "flick". GotG is more Sci-Fi, but I still have trouble indentifying it as pure Sci-Fi and putting it next to Blade Runner or Logan's Run. Iron Man doesn't feel all that different from Captain America, and that's a problem in my opinion. They all just have the same... "feel". I won't say formula, because that's evident. It's more than that. The structure, the stories, the characters, the acting; they're all interchangeable. I can watch Indiana Jones and get a wholy different feel from "The Adventures Of Adele Blanc-Sec", which is a homage to it, so why can't I get the same from Avengers and Thor: Ragnarok? Maybe it's just me and my sourness. To be honest, I find little joy in things anymore. Just my work/studies, and even then it's... complicated.
I don't know. I mean, I watch Billions and it feels different from Succession, even though both are shows about ultra-rich people. So why can't I do the same with Capeflicks? It's like how every show on the CW, no matter the subject matter, is more or less the same. Or how Tudors & Borgias were extremelly similar. I don't know, maybe I'm jaded. Or maybe I'm right and there is truly nothing to look forward to... Eh, at the end of the day, who cares?
I hear what you're saying about Marvel Studios cbm's with respect to each other but do you really get the same vibe between Thor Ragnarok and Logan? Or even the similarly plotted CW and BvS?
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What I've found is that being jaded isn't a permanent state of mind, although it can feel that way. Sometimes things change externally, sometimes internally, changing one's perspective on entertainment and whatever else.
You're not wrong about the flattening of the storytelling landscape. That's thanks to very large amounts of money. You may just need to stumble upon different kinds of storytelling, which can be difficult in our corporate echo-chamber media landscape.
Sometimes stagnation is a precursor to meaningful change.
I still love the way a film like Endgame or Iron Man can make me feel in the moment, but I don't examine them too closely unless it's just for fun...and (although it doesn't seem like it given the content and sometimes the frequency of my posts here) I tend to fill my life with other stuff that's totally unrelated. Comic-book movies are pure escapist junk food that I still happen to enjoy, although I imagine there may be a time I'm put off them, temporarily or not.
I guess they're like pizza to me. I've eaten truly amazing pizza in Italy but I'll still eat bad take-out here in North America.
Hm, yeah, Logan's a good point. That was different enough. As for CW & BvS... Kinda, yeah. Although I've come to appreciate BvS more. Regardless of its failure, it at least tried to be different. That's not always good, but an attempt was made. I don't know, it's a recent feeling. I used to be able to "differentiate" between all the CBMs but now they all feel too similar. Like I said, maybe I'm just jaded. I go back to 2010 where I couldn't believe such flicks would be made. But now that they're here, I can't help but feel dissapointed. So many genres, so many fun characters to play with, and instead of making films with a Cape coating, they all jsut made Capflicks, regardless of the source's leanings. Perhaps my recent distaste of all things comic books/videogames/pop culture is influencing my opinions. I just... I can't help but feel that we could've gotten some good and entertaining movies out of all those IPs instead of just barely different clones. But I guess that's the business...
That's a fair point, but I don't consider this "jadedness" a bad thing per se. I sort of like it, it's freeing. The problem is that I regret the time spent on them. The thousands spent on ****** books created for toddlers. The kinds whose writers say "controversy and anger sells", so they break up the fan favorite couple, shove some IR in there to make their fans mad and rake in the rewards. And I bought that. The thousands wasted on plastic ****** toy-, excuse me, "collectors items". What a joke... Tens of thousands of dollars, thousands of hours just... gone down the drain.
I've watched hundreds of hours of television the recent years. I've gone through all the greats, the mediocres and some oddball. And you know what? It didn't matter one bit. I watched Mad Men, I watched Sopranos, I watched LOST and BBC miniseries. I watched The Night Manager and I watched Patrick Melrose. And many, many more. And it didn't make any difference. They're gone, forgotten, and they added nothing to my life.
Maybe you're right. I just feel that this "enlightnement" came too late.
That's what it was like for me as well, I was never a "stan" or however they call it. I just liked that feeling of anticipation.
That's an apt description although, for me, it's more like I've grown tired not only of pizza, but food entirely.
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So then it's time for something else. I read fiction ravenously for decades. There came a time when I started reading more in the way of personal essay, biography, philosophy, anthropology, history, life sciences, ethnogeography ... and it's not so often I read fiction anymore. Because I could hear the narrative machinery clanking away in the background, a series of contrivances with which I was all too familiar.
Doesn't mean I'll never read fiction again, but I needed something else.
As for regretting time and money spent -- whenever I find myself wishing I could have done things differently, I do them differently in the present, with conviction. I don't mind regret so much in the sense that I've always said regret is a teacher.
That made me laugh. Because its true.
Like the 1950's, the last 20 years have been dominated by "producers"... everything has been produced, from boy bands and singers to movies. There are no Lucas and Spielberg's out there right now defining the landscape. Film has become a Producer's medium. And like the 50's, there's a lot of "show" but very little distinctive and unique about it all. It's flash and dance and lights and colors and it all plays very well to the masses. A singer's voice is inconsequential to her dance moves in sync with her posse while fireworks explode. You can look at the endless parade of franchise IP monsters in the same way. And even though I enjoy many of them, I realize they are not impacting me, or anyone else, the same way many movies did 30-40 years ago. And its not because I'm "old". It's not really impacting the youth either. It's as disposable as their cellphones. Nothing holds any more... that's why everyone is required to create "universes" now. You're only as good as your next connecting flick. Hell, they even got M. Night trying to force a universe to get something made. Sad state.
We're due for a change. But we need talent. You'd think with an entire generation raised with a movie camera in their hand that we would be ripe with talented individuals... but instead they seem few and far between. Maybe everyone has been weened on mediocrity and infected by the lowest common denominator for too long.
But it will change. It always does. Perhaps we just have to wait for the next generation?
That's the thing; I've done all that. And it all feels equally hollow. I grew up with Aristotle and my Commie Uncle (boy, do I have a whole lot of Tankies in my family...) was reading me Satre. But philosophy, at some point, felt as if I was reading people's diaries and it stopped having any meaning behind it. They're useful for spitballing ideas and getting the ball rolling, but I still felt as if I was "robbing" myself of precious time.Tiem that could be spent learning.
The only thing I seem to care enough for these days is my work, my studies. I can "feel" them, they're on the ground, they're tangible. They produce results, they take me forward. But it all still feels empty. As if I'm half a person. Can you truly be complete if you're just a master of one thing and nothing else? But with the vastness of today's knowledge, time is far too limited to let you spread your wings, to gain even a modicum of experience with other areas, lest you wish to be a mediocrity in all.
I guess my problem is that, ever since I was a kid, I did everything concurrently and now that I've gotten tired of one thing, I'm tired of... everything. Maybe the bright side is that I have even more time to devote to my work.
Oh, that's a fine way of looking at things. It's just... Have you seen these people who watch these movies? The "Eric Butts" and such of the world. All the "normies". I mean, we used to read those books as kids, and now everyone's acting as if they're such huge fans. I find myself angry at this situation. But then I think about it, and realize that I'm not angry at them. I'm angry at the fact that I spent so much time on frivolous ********, and in the end it didn't matter. They know about Iron Man. They enjoy Iron Man. I've read 600 issues of his. And what did it matter? Nothing.
I know, I know, I'm rambling and blogposting, it's just... I don't lack focus or need a direction or to fill a void, I am content, more or less. I have a path to follow. I just wonder, does anybody else feel sort of "fooled", by all these flicks, or is it just me?
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I posted this a while back in some other thread -- it was part of a contentious discussion so my post probably got nuked as collateral damage when the mods cleaned it.
It can happen again, it just hasn't yet. William Gibson has imagined the "Garage Kubrick".
https://www.wired.com/1999/10/gibson-5/
Unfortunately, you have to have a split-personality to succeed: you need talent, but you also need to be able to con people -- you need to be a salesman.
Spielberg was a savage salesman in his day, few people know this side of his personality. But it helped get him where he needed to be at a very early age.
Someone locked away in his garage OCDing on minutia will never "make it" as they say. You have to make people "want to play with you." Just imagine the egos you're dealing with when you have really great actors in your films. You have to be able to mange that.
I'm quite certain many modern Shakespeares have died quietly alone with their magnificent ideas.
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Yeah, when he took Shia Labeouf to task over his pointed remarks about the Indy film he was in, he said something like "There's a time to speak your mind, and a time to sell cars".
You make a very good point, but my takeaway from Gibson's idea (which is old now) is what I take to be the correct assumption that the most exciting stories aren't going to come from the likes of Disney and Lucasfilm. They make a great product, but there's nothing unpredictable about it.
I've been waiting for a Batman film that will probably never be made. Grounded like Nolan's absolutely was not, realistic, quiet and intense, devoid of bombast.
Who knows, maybe we'll get some other superhero film like that.
It reminds of that recent Garfield flick; "Under The Silver Lake". It's worth a watch, really.
That made me laugh. Because its true.
Like the 1950's, the last 20 years have been dominated by "producers"... everything has been produced, from boy bands and singers to movies. There are no Lucas and Spielberg's out there right now defining the landscape. Film has become a Producer's medium. And like the 50's, there's a lot of "show" but very little distinctive and unique about it all. It's flash and dance and lights and colors and it all plays very well to the masses. A singer's voice is inconsequential to her dance moves in sync with her posse while fireworks explode. You can look at the endless parade of franchise IP monsters in the same way. And even though I enjoy many of them, I realize they are not impacting me, or anyone else, the same way many movies did 30-40 years ago. And its not because I'm "old". It's not really impacting the youth either. It's as disposable as their cellphones. Nothing holds any more... that's why everyone is required to create "universes" now. You're only as good as your next connecting flick. Hell, they even got M. Night trying to force a universe to get something made. Sad state.
My opinion is that, the more we move forward, the more we devolve. We're lacking quality, while multiplying vastly. Well, to be fair, only a certain few truly expand across the globe... Because you see, quality always was rare, the truly exceptional. And now the more the population rises, the more rare it becomes, I think. The minorities decrease more and more, the masses increase, and soon enough the only thing living in the world will be a complacent form of absolute mediocrity. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to stress for. Nothing to produce great work through experiences of life. Just a straight line from A to B, filled with the most safe of choices.
I'm in my very early 20s, and yet I feel like a grandpa. My Uni is nothing more than a pitiful collection of fools. They're all studying to be Physicists, Engineers, or what have you. The Architects of Tomorrow. And yet, all they care about, it watchign Rick & Morty, getting laid, "punching Nazis" and oh, lest I forget their grand plans for the future, "get into research" and then... That's it. Oh yes, they'll "do research" and... Do what, exactly? They all shoot for the starts and forget that we're still standing on the ground... I could forgive that, were they at least interested in various endeavors, but they're not. They cannot paint or write. They cannot create. They're just adequate enough at their studies and... that's not enough. How will you discover if you don't seek knowledge in places other than your prescribed books?
I'm afraid that the human race is coming to an end. Not now, and maybe not in the "everybody dies" version. But it surely is losing all of its inherent beauty. We used to spin tales and myths. Now we don't, apparently we've moved past that. We're "too evolved" for that. Funny how all these people around me call themselves men of "science", invoking a sort of "rationality" when they're merely just carbon copies. They drown themselves in an assurance of "goodnes". Bah, as if man can be contained in a singular state. Art derives from life, and it's all becoming woefully automated, predictable, and worst of all, incredibly stupid. This isn't a rant of "superiority". I'm devastated precisely because I never really considered myself all that much. I never really saw myself as the hero of the story, who wins at the end, gets the girl and all that. I was content with being the supporting character who gets an off-panel mention. But I expected others, the ones who saw themselves as the protagonists, to have some sort of goal in mind. But they don't. They have the confidence, the bravado,the head free of burdens, but they also have the same desires with my mentally challenged cousin down the lake... Give them holes and cocks, bottles of scotch, and take away their souls. And I say that as someone who downs a bottle every Saturday. Or did, anyhow. At some point, that became boring too.
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Learning what?
I'm of the opinion that being human is to be incomplete by definition.
What's the nature of your work?
I notice it from time to time, but it's low on my list of priorities. I don't mind it most of the time anyway. I welcome it, given some of the alternatives.
It doesn't need to matter. You remind me a little of my ex. She would get exasperated because she felt nothing mattered but accused me of feeling content and one with the universe with something as simple as a cup of coffee. She wasn't entirely wrong about the latter.
Unless she's changed in the last few years, I imagine the only things she cares about are her work, her family and travelling. She fills the rest of the space with a demanding physical training regimen.
As a runner and practitioner of Muay Thai, I also fill the space with things that ground me and pull me into my body in an immediate and concrete way, but the rest of my life is rich with interests that still engage me. This geeky stuff is one of several interests that I switch between for entertainment and leisure.
I don't feel fooled because I know this is all contrived corporate product. I take what I like in the moment and forget about the rest.
There are nerd-centric properties I just don't care about and probably never will, others I outgrow. But 'fooled'? Never. Metaphorically speaking that'd be like falling in love with a prostitute. Don't confuse business with emotional content.
This has gotten really heavy. But its a wonderfully intelligent conversation. Burn-out sucks. But ZE is right, it doesn't last forever. It's like the sadness that follows a break-up. It only lasts until you find the next girl. The next hotter girl.
Absolutely not. As I said, in a period where everything is produced, nothing thrives.
"Genius", "auteur", whatever -- a unique point of view will always be superior to the masses. Most people inherently like to follow. I don't know what that's all about, but its true. Kings and Dictators know it to be true. We here are allegiant to our favorite films. It's a terrible Lemming trait built into our genetic make-up. Fortunately for us, a few mutations happen every generation.
Absolutely not. As I said, in a period where everything is produced, nothing thrives.
"Genius", "auteur", whatever -- a unique point of view will always be superior to the masses. Most people inherently like to follow. I don't know what that's all about, but its true. Kings and Dictators know it to be true. We here are allegiant to our favorite films. It's a terrible Lemming trait built into our genetic make-up. Fortunately for us, a few mutations happen every generation.
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I'm now 45. In the last 25 years I've seen and experienced things I never imagined, accomplished things I didn't even know I wanted, and learned and grew and learned and grew until 45-year-old me is unrecognizable from 20-year old me, outside of some lingering tendencies regarding music and entertainment.
I discovered that there were some things I was right about, even back then, and mostly discovered myself.
There's a lot to see, and you have to be there. It's all experiential. I'm not talking down to your age, it's just a fact. In the longer term life is like an inside joke you have to be there for.
As much as it may seem that way, the whole planet isn't like that. You're describing aspects of modernity, but it's not evenly distributed.
Well, when I entered University to study Physics, I knew a whole lot about Marquis De Sade, John Wilmot, and Kierkegaard. I knew even more about comics. And yet I didn't know how to speak Russian, for example. I didn't know how to Code. And as time moves, as the subjects become more demanding, as the time to join the real world nears, I find De Sade's works of no help, and my inabillity to code a great hinderance. I jsut feel as if philosophy is rather wasted on those of us with more "grounded" goals. It's more concerned with answers of higher callings. In circles of learned men it's of course needed, but in the life of a fool like myself... it's of no consequence. It only burdens me, and for no good reason.Meanwhile others never bothered with it. They used their time efficiently and poured their time on those few precious things.
Oh, that goes without saying. No man can master it all. I guess I just had this silly notion that a modern man could achieve the Renaissance Ideal. I never expected to be Batman, he was always too unrealistic for me, even as a kid. I merely wanted to be Von Neumann, but it seems that us normal people can't even do that.
Currently? Trying desperately to catch up with exam deadlines and having no idea how anything works because I've missed two years worth of classes. Theoretically it's "physics", but I'm leaning towards engineering. I'm researching biology independently, following the Uni's textbook resources, but it's eating time and making me doubt my path. So, all in all, just a giant, walking failure with delusions of grandeur.
I guess. It just feels like a punch to the gut at times. All the money spent, and yet it doesn't make me and the newcomes all that different. They're corporate products with no loyalty or set character. Who cares if I was an airhead who spent so much on frivolous things?
I guess I should just learn to let go a bit.
I used to do Tae-KwonDo. GrecoRoman. Some Bodybuilding for a while. All sprinkled with brief periods of various sports. Then I stopped and... honestly I regret it. But I can't get back into it now. Time's too limited. I used to have a few hobbies. Nothing too crazy, just enough. Now nothing remains.
Eh, I'm not talking about the Capestuff at this point, I'm just off-topic venting. I couldn't care less about Capes, I never really took them that seriously. I just feel sort of empty with everything now and it's bringing me down.I don't feel fooled because I know this is all contrived corporate product. I take what I like in the moment and forget about the rest.
There are nerd-centric properties I just don't care about and probably never will, others I outgrow. But 'fooled'? Never. Metaphorically speaking that'd be like falling in love with a prostitute. Don't confuse business with emotional content.
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There are moments in everyone's life, where philosophy is all we've got. It tends to go up in value then. I'm not referring to formal studies. More of a human condition thing.
The world has changed. Not a bad thing.
Naah...you're not a 'failure' you're just inexperienced and exploratory. You have a lot more time than you think to figure all of that stuff out. Arguably your whole life, but at least 20 years.
That comes with experience.
I've been in and out of Muay Thai since I was 22. Picked it back up again after a 3 year absence when I was 'too old to fight' and promptly spent the next 3 years fighting. That stuff lives in your bones and you can get it back when the time comes.
There will always be some kind of challenge within and without. And the older you get the higher the stakes get. The difference is that experience makes one more capable and at peace. Perspective really is everything.
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We've evolved to function within a social hierarchy, amongst other things. But change always comes.
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